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Postgame Quotes: Cal-Nevada

Postgame Quotes: Cal-Nevada

By Cal Athletics on Tue, December 10, 2013

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California Head Coach Mike Montgomery

On the game

“Not a defensive performance from either team. I watched Nevada shoot the ball in warmups and watched them dunk and thought, ‘Oh my God, they’re athletic,” and they are. They’re terrific athletes…. They can score. They’re just not a great defensive team and that’s what got them. We were able to move the ball. We had 19-6 assist to turnover ratio which was pleasing. We got people rhythm shots and we made shots. We had six guys in double figures. I thought all of that was good. I thought we made a lot of mistakes defensively. I think there’s still things we’re learning about how to play defense. Some of the things that we didn’t do, we tried to talk about…. We were going to switch one through four but it became obvious that Deonte Burton, if he got one of the bigs on him…. He’s a very, very explosive athlete. We tried to fire the ball screen and we didn’t do a very good job. We’re having a hard time getting our post guys up aggressively. Late in the game we had one where we did it exactly right. We strung him out and trapped him and he came out and got a 35 second violations. That’s what we need to do. He wasn’t as good moving the ball out of a trap or a fire as he is when he’s got you one on one. There’s still things we need to learn and get better at, but it was a nice win for us and a good bounce back.”

On Justin Cobbs

“He’s conscious of the fact that he has to be distributing the ball. Our freshmen are not our best defenders. But in order to take advantage of them, you have to give them the ball where they can be effective. Jordan and Jabari are two of our better shooters but he’s got to give them the ball where they can be effective…. He understands that. He made some shots early that helped us get off the snide a little bit and get going.”

On the change to the starting lineup

“Jordan played well in the last game. It wasn’t like we arbitrarily decided that the starting lineup was our best five. We wanted to have a veteran come off the bench, i.e. Ricky [Kreklow]. It was Ty [Wallace] in this situation. I think Jabari knew that he wasn’t playing as well as he’s capable of. It didn’t really bother him. We just wanted to change. If we can keep it competitive, we want to. We want to keep guys motivated. We don’t want guys to get stale or take anything for granted…. I’d like to get Sam Singer and Roger [Moute a Bidias] more time.”

On Kameron Rooks

“He actually has done a pretty good job. He’s tried to get up and he tried to fire the screens. He’ll rebound his area. If he gets tired he’s not going to move around as well. He’s not going to ract laterally but if he’s down low and it’s near the basket he’s got a pretty good chance of getting it. He’s getting more comfortable with the ball and he’s not giving up the panic pass. We need him. We need another big that can go in there.”

On Jordan Matthews

“Jordan is a coach’s son. He takes criticism. His dad has probably told him a thing or two that would peel paint off the wall. He’s not afraid of criticism He’s a tough guy and he wants to learn, so he asks questions. Justin likes people to come to him. He’s not afraid to take a big shot and he’s been pretty good for us from the perimeter. He’s a good shooter. We just need to keep bringing him along defensively.”

On tying John Wooden’s career victory record

“The number of wins doesn’t mean much to anybody because they don’t relate. When you say it’s John Wooden, everybody perks up. If you’re putting it into context – they go, ‘Oh?! He won as many as John Wooden?”…. I got a little work to do, I’m ten national championships short. I don’t think I’ll get that. It’s pleasing. I asked somebody, ‘Who’s the last person on the list I got?’ No idea. ‘And who’s the next one?’ No idea…. It’s very flattering…. I followed him very closely and watched all the national championships and got to know the man very well. There’s nothing to compare other than the fact that I got the same number of wins.”

California Players

Justin Cobbs, Senior Guard

On team’s balanced scoring efforts

“I think that’s the depth of this team…like I said before at the beginning of this year, this team has a lot of weapons. A lot of guys that can put the ball in the hole…in the beginning of the season a lot of guys were asking if there was more pressure on myself and Richard as seniors and that’s not the case at all. We have our same roles and my role is even more, I’m distributing even more because we have so many weapons. So I mean that just makes us so much more dangerous. We have guys like Jordan, Jabari, Ricky and Tyrone…I think we had six guys in double-digits tonight. We’re just distributing the ball, playing together and having fun.”

On relationship with Deonte Burton

“We played against each other many times. We’re childhood friends, we’re both from LA. I wouldn’t say he got under my skin; it’s just frustrating sometimes when the calls were going the other way and myself being so competitive…he was doing a great job of getting body contact and getting some calls, but it’s just the game of basketball.”

On what he shares as a leader

“Confidence. Just confidence, confidence, confidence. It’s all about building these guys up. It’s okay to make mistakes, but we just have to bounce back. Jordan played great tonight, Jabari played great tonight…I’m happy we got the win.”

Jordan Mathews, Freshman Guard

On difference between starting and coming off the bench

“Anything I can do to help, it doesn’t really matter. When he told me I was starting it just was different, nine games…in in high school I started a lot, but then I got used to coming off the bench, I got used to just coming in and being able to help in whatever way possible. It’s not so much different, as it’s just an adjustment I’ll have to make, a different role to help us win. The different role is that coach said we needed a different vibe, different energy. So Ricky and I, when we changed the starting lineup, just bring in energy in the jump and just play hard.”

On what he’s learned from Cobbs

“Justin’s taught all the freshmen that you can’t really dwell on plays, because the game’s coming at you so fast. In high school it was like ‘Ahh I messed up, but I can get it back’…but here your memory has to be really short. He’s taught us by example that your confidence almost has to border on cockiness because the guy you’re playing is just as confident in his abilities as you are in yours. If you drop back even for a second, he’s coming at you. So we’re just learning from the older guys every day. Every day, if they have anything to say to us, we learn.”

Nevada Head Coach David Carter

On the game

“ I thought that both teams offensively shot the ball very well, it was very even from that standpoint but they got more stops than we did. They outscored us. I thought we competed well, but not on the defensive end. “